Russian strikes kill two in Ukraine as attacks claim over 50 lives in three days
Russian strikes killed two people and wounded at least eight others across Ukraine on Friday, officials said, as Moscow's escalating bombardment claimed more than 50 lives over three days and Kyiv appealed to NATO for additional air defence support.
One man was killed and five people, including a child, were wounded in Russian strikes on residential areas in the Zaporizhzhia region on Friday morning, regional military administration head Mykhailo Semikin said.
Another man was killed in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, regional administration head Svitlana Onyshchuk reported.
Russian attacks also struck warehouse facilities in the Bucha district of the Kyiv region, wounding three people, Ukraine's Interior Ministry said. Rescue workers were searching for a woman who may have been trapped under the rubble.
The latest strikes came amid a series of deadly Russian attacks across Ukraine. On Thursday, a Russian guided bomb exploded near public buses carrying passengers in eastern Ukraine, killing 30 people. A missile strike a day earlier killed 22 people, including five children, in the northern town of Pryluky.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russia could intensify its attacks as winter approaches, threatening the country's energy infrastructure and an economy battered by more than four years of war.
Russian strikes in recent days have targeted energy systems, industrial facilities, railways, post offices, shopping centres, telecommunications networks, gas stations and grain exports.
Zelenskyy on Thursday urged NATO countries to turn their pledges of support into additional military assistance.
“It is important that support in words takes concrete form in new packages for Ukraine's defence,” he wrote in an online post, calling for supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for combat aircraft and investments in interceptor systems.
Ukraine relies on US-made Patriot air defence systems to counter Russian ballistic missiles and is racing to develop new interceptors capable of bringing down Moscow's jet-powered drones.
The two countries remain locked in a long-range aerial war even as their ground forces are largely deadlocked along the front line.
Ukrainian strikes hit Russian technology facilities
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack damaged a data centre belonging to Russian technology company Yandex in the Kaluga region, the company confirmed. Several modules at the facility had been “completely disabled”, it said.
The incident marked the second reported attack on a Yandex data centre in two days. A drone strike on Thursday had knocked a facility in Russia's western Ryazan region offline.
Kaluga regional governor Vladislav Shapsha said nine people had been wounded in drone attacks in the region on Friday.
In the Tver region, a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at a factory in Redkino, regional governor Vitaly Korolyov said. No casualties were reported.
Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences had intercepted or destroyed 505 Ukrainian drones between late Thursday and early Friday.
Deadly attacks reported in Russia
In Russia's eastern Belgorod region, a Ukrainian attack killed two people and wounded 12, the regional emergency headquarters and governor Alexander Shuvayev said.
The latest cross-border strikes underscored the intensifying aerial campaign, with both sides targeting military and strategic infrastructure while civilians continued to bear the consequences of the war.
